Reputation, trust and the dynamics of leadership in communities of practice

Paul Muller ()

Journal of Management & Governance, 2006, vol. 10, issue 4, 400 pages

Abstract: The aim of this article is to propose a theoretical framework describing the internal organization of communities of practice in a dynamic perspective. More precisely, we argue that communities of practice adopt some specific patterns of internal organization where some of their members obtain a leadership status. Leaders contribute to cognitive advance of the community of practice by providing members with a consistent and coherent vision of its objectives. We identify two of their attributes as important for allowing them to fulfil their task: informational mimesis and mediation. Finally, we propose a simulation model describing the emergence of leadership as the outcome of a self-organizing process. We find that leaders correspond to members who are characterized by higher levels of activity in the community. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2006

Keywords: Community of practice; Coordination; Leadership; Reputation; Trust; Social Simulation; D29; L14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10997-006-9007-0

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